Lanning became Australia's youngest captain, male or female, when she filled in for injured wicketkeeper Jodie Fields in January 2014. She impressed sufficiently that then coach Cathryn Fitzpatrick and then chief selector Julie Savage recommended Lanning keep the role when Fields returned to full fitness.

The decision cost them Fields, as the well-regarded captain elected to retire from international cricket. Nevertheless, their willingness emphatically for Lanning to learn on the job - she had only captained Victoria in five matches to that stage of her career - has paid off handsomely, even though both Fitzpatrick and Savage have each since left.

The Lanning-led Southern Stars won last year's World Twenty20 and enjoyed a perfect record in last season's home series against Pakistan and the West Indies. But even with the World Twenty20 back again early next year, winning the Ashes in England for the first time since 2001 was an overriding goal for the team.

This series is the first in which Lanning has had a new coach to work with: former NSW coach Matthew Mott.

Even though the 23-year-old is not a selector, a regular feature of the tour is seeing the two of them deep in discussion. It was why on Wednesday night in Chelmsford, as some of the support staff were finishing a nightcap in the team hotel bar and saw two Southern Stars backpacks left behind, they discovered they belonged to Lanning and Mott. They were holed up in a quiet corner of the bar - without a drink, mind - determining what went wrong in the loss earlier that night and, seemingly, how they could remedy it.

Excepting the one-day series, where Lanning's dominant performances in the second and third matches sparked the Stars' comeback from their loss at the start, she has not been at her best with the bat. But instead of dwelling on not reaching her expectations there, as she was prone to before the captaincy came along, she had kept focused on the team goals, and generally out-captained her long-standing England counterpart Charlotte Edwards throughout the series.

Friday's player of the match Rene Farrell hailed the 23-year-old for her decisive captaincy.

"I really enjoy Meg as captain. I'm at the top of my mark and she's just cool, calm and collected, which is what you want, saying 'Full and straight, this is the field, this is what we do' . . . it's nice to have, rather than someone that's not sure of what they're doing," the veteran seamer said. "Meg's been really positive. We look up to Meg, which is important . . . I think she's No.1 in batting in the world so she's leading by example in that department as well."

Friday's win in the second Twenty20 against England guaranteed the Stars will win the women's Ashes. In doing, Lanning broke another age record for Australian captains. At 23 years and five months she is more than a year younger than the previous youngest female to lead Australia to an Ashes series victory, Lyn Larsen in 1984, and three years young than the youngest male to achieve the feat, Billy Murdoch in 1882.

In the aftermath of the victory Lanning was keen to deflect praise on to the team's support staff, particularly Mott.

"He's been excellent, for the team and me personally. He's such a relaxed guy that he really gets the players in a good headspace . . . be confident about your game. He's really good at that. So is [assistant coach] Tim Coyle and [bowling consultant] Joe Dawes, who's been helping us out as well. The group was really relaxed [before the series], really enjoying our cricket. It's just flown by, but every bit of it has been a lot of fun," she said.

"I just think there's a really good feeling throughout the group and some of that influence comes from the coach. He's settled in really nicely. Hopefully there's a lot more success to come as well."

Jesse Hogan is covering the women's Ashes with the support of Cricket Australia